Guest Kirsteen Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hi there, So are there any medical education groups out there that are studying the reasons for the high female to male ratio of medical school matriculants these days? This past year, a large proportion of Canadian schools showed large and significant differences in the proportion of female to male matriculants. At the HBSU Medical School Symposium, most of the representatives of the schools that demonstrated this phenomenon shrugged and offered no solid reasons. I'd be interested in hearing your opinions as to why you think this is happening. :rolleyes Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ibraheem Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 yes i have noted that after looking at the statics from the past 3 years... :x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ollie Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Rather than just the raw number of male to female matriculants, wouldn't it be better to look at the male/female proportion of applicants vs the male/female matriculants? If the rate of admission is the same, then there's no problem. If females are more likely to be admitted, then I guess we need to ask why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hi there, Yep, you're completely correct. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cptn med Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Good point Ollie Looking around my science classes I notice a consistently higher number of female students in general. I assume this plays a part. Plus the ability to articulate can sometimes come across stronger in the female sex (hence the importance on the verbal/written communication requirements). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MDSMelissa Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 So, the scary thing to think about... is medicine becoming a "female career"? Where are all the men? What are they doing? Is this trend seen in more disciplines? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hi there, Hasn't a similar trend been taking place in engineering programs over the years? That is, although men may still outnumber the women, the proportion of women in engineering classes is increasing. Good question MDSMelissa: where are all the men going? As a bit of an aside, does the "MDS" in your name refer to the medical diagnostic company perchance? Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 My understanding is that on the whole there are more women than men seeking post-secondary education, not just in medicine. Where all the young men have gone I have no clue. I'd guess trade work, but considering the current ridiculous shortage in plumbers and electricians. . . I doubt that's the case. Who knows, maybe what we're seeing is the verge of another sexual revolution. This time the men will demand to be allowed to stay home and do all the household chores, whereas the women will become the breadwinners of the family. Or, perhaps this revolution will leave men and women in the same position as lions and lionesses: the women will be the breadwinners AND do the household chores, leaving the men to just sit around all day and stud. Men can only hope. :hat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TimmyMax Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Maybe guys are just getting stupider (is that a word? Proof!). I don't know what UWOMED2005's excuse is, though! :lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CaesarCornelius Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 I just thought that I'd point out that although there is a slight change in the ratio of m:f in nursing school, it is still about 85% to 15% at dalhousie. Maybe even higher. WHy isn't there a trend in the opposite direction (ie. an increase of males in a traditionally female profession)? CC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Good point. I believe only 3/50 (6%) of the 2005 class of nursing at UWO are men. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ibraheem Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 i agree with Ollie, if there are more females that apply and the acceptance ratio is almost the same, and less male apply that would mean that males have a greater chance of getting in! :rollin ( personally i think women are taking over professionaly careers :evil ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TimmyMax Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hey, I wouldn't necessarily say that women are taking over- if you look at the ratios of men to women in the UWO classes of 2005 and 2006, they are 59 men, 59 women for 2005 and 71 men and 62 women for 2006. Not sure about 2007, though, but I can try to find out. Of course, one could rebut this by pointing out the Mac ratios for those same years, but I'm just saying that just because you have a 'Y' chromosome, your professional goose isn't quite cooked...yet. Best of luck! Timmy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MDSMelissa Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Yes, Kirsteen, MDS does refer to the medical diagnostic company... it's where I work. Just to note, in the field of Lab Technologists, there are about 80% women, 20% men. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hey there MDSMelissa, That's really neat. Are you enjoying it there, I assume as a lab tech? Are you down at 100 International Blvd taking care of business? I worked for MDS for ~5 years, a good while back in one of their remote labs. I found them to be a great company. Very well run. If you are a lab tech, in what area? When I was there, I started out in haematology with the big Coulter counters (which I assume they've since replaced) and then became trained in the wonders of the Microbiology section and customer service. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 The 2007 class at UWO has 71 women and 62 men...exact reversal from the 2006 class and the first time in history that UWO's med class has had more women than men. I am assured by admin that this more or less reflected last year's applicant pool. As for where the men have gone: there have been several studies that have looked at education and males lately. They are finding that the big push in the early 1980's to encourage and help women (girls) to succeed in math and sciences and to attend post-secondary education has been entirely too successful...to the point where elementary level classrooms are now very 'female' oriented - sit still, pay attention, work independently at a young age and as a result, young boys are less successful. This seems to be carrying through all the way to the university level...many of the boys are never catching up...they are weak in reading skills and develop behaviour/motivation problems and never seek out post-secondary education. It has been suggested that there needs to be 'boy friendly' special programs started in the elementary level schools to reverse this trend (as there were when girls were noticeably deficient in math and science)...but it has been suggested that the general public is going to be unwilling to fund special 'boy only' special programs in public schools. The female:male ratio in undergrad is similarly skewed....my undergrad institution had 70:30 female to male across the board and the vet med program has been 80% female for the past several years....it isn't just med! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cptn med Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 That was really interesting info anliz. I notice exactly what you described both in elementary schools and one of the places that I volunteer. At times the curriculum seems so femininely directed that the little boys really do have a hard time sitting still that long and being forced to do that much colouring. It is less than fair for all of the children. I think it would be difficult for society to start male-oriented learning programs because they would feel like they were regressing instead of progressing. Women have come very far to be treated more equally...a boy-centered learning program could appear as a threat (without intending to). I seems that male-oriented learning activities that will help young men achieve the right skills to succeed may have to start with and be nurtured primarily at home (instead of school). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest moo Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 I believe UBC's ACCEPTANCE RATE (not just number of women in the class) for women have been consistently 2x that of men. They like to argue that women have more of the qualities they are looking for but I think it is an indirect attempt at recruiting more women into medicine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ollie Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Actually, if you look at UBC's admission stats www.admissions.med.ubc.ca/stats.html you will see that this is not true, at least for the last two years. 2002 applicants: 52.7 % female, 47.3% male 2002 matriculants: 55.5% female, 44.5% male (a slight advantage for females) 2003 applicants: 53.3% female, 46.7% male 2003 matriculants: 51.6% female, 48.4% male (a slight advantage for males) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hi there, Just a wee point there that may or may not make a difference: the number of matriculants rarely equals the number of acceptances sent each year. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ollie Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 I may have my understanding of "matriculants" wrong. In this case by matriculants, I mean the actual entering class of 128 people. Of course there are those that were accepted and turned down their acceptance. Maybe there are more detailed stats somewhere. I think UBC gives those details to those interviewees who were not accepted. Anyone have those numbers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DonaldKaufman Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Perhaps some of the men have gravitated toward the arts, or maybe newer fields like computer science. I used to work campus security at my school's computer science building, and, unquestionably, the vast majority of computer science students were male. Maybe males from other science cirricula have been siphoned off to areas of study, like computer science, that weren't as prominent 10 years ago. For example, in my biology program almost 70% of the undergraduate students were female, but maybe if computer science wasn't around, a lot of the CS students would have gravitated to biology and other science programs and evened out the numbers a bit. Who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jmh2005 Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Well...the stats on the McMaster MD Class of 2005... Female 106 Male 32 Yes, that's greater than 78% female...2006 is similar, but there are a few more men (8-10, I think) and less women...the guys in my class are great, we need more!! (not that the women aren't great!) I have no explanations, just giving you the facts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Hi there, Just to add a perspective from another health-related sector (epidemiology research), it's a similar here too: in our MSc class of twelve, two are men. Additionally, in the UofT MHSc class that entered at the same time as ours, the proportion was about the same, perhaps a few points less. Where ARE all the guys going? Business? Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest turtle Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Same is true here at Ottawa U....in my year of the Epidemiology program there are only 2 men and about 14 or so women! I'm also doing an inter-university diploma program in Health Services & Policy Research....it's only the first year that the program's been offered but with 6 universities participating there are about 20 or so students and ALL of us are women!! weird stuff turtle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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